Today I had a vegetarian Christmas dinner at my sister's house - that's to say, a normal dinner minus the turkey! Roast spuds, mashed spuds, boiled spuds, roast parsnips, carrots, broccoli, peas, green beans, Yorkshire pud, stuffing and gravy, washed down with a couple of bottles of champagne - half price at Sainsburys, so probably not vintage - followed by assorted chocolates and biscuits. Belly very full now! No telly or music today though - we all sat round the table and yacked for a few hours whilst my niece and I amused ourselves by carving the corks into primitive faces using the mini-screwdrivers that came in the crackers - who needs a Playstation! Got home this evening and immediately donned my parka and wooly hat and went for a two mile walk to refresh myself. Very cold and a good frost, but no snow. My aunt phoned from north Wales this morning though to say that it was snowing steadily there.

been reading martin chuzzlewit and worrying about the family back home in denmark that have had to suffer a christmas unblessed by my pleasant company and illustrious witticisms on a wide range of topics, hope they're alright!

That sounds like a pretty dreary Christmas Gord - though its probably pretty much how my parents have spent theirs, either arguing with each other or not speaking at all. By their own choice though, they've been invited both to mine and my in laws' places and they won't agree to come to either. Thank goodness I've gotten married and bought a place of my/our own in the last year and a bit and am now out of the sphere of their negative influence. Instead my wife and I spent a very relaxing Christmas day at my in laws house enjoying their company and the first Christmas of our 9 month old nephew, the latest addition to the family. That's the way it really should be and I'm sure one day you will get out of your current s(h)ituation and find the same peace and contentment.

Yeah was quite miserable, however I give thanks for the fact that I still have a roof over my head and food to eat, etc.

I got the same old excuse again that there's not much point doing anything since my Mum died but that's crap as my Mum would have wanted us to try and make the most of things. I'm sure there's many families out there that have suffered loss too but who still take part in the festivities. As I said, I just took some booze up to my room and kept out of the way......

That's eight miserable Christmases like that I've been through now, I am NOT going through it next year - you can put money on that!

As usual my girlfriend and I largely ignored Christmas although we did make Christmasy phone calls to our families. We didn't have any Christmas food - she, being a vegetarian, treated herself to some roast veggies from the Italian cafe round the corner that never closes, I cooked myself a steak and read a hundred pages of a book called 'Dead Cities' by Mike Davis about ecocide and bad town planning in Las Vegas and LA.

Later we went for a chilly walk through Chelsea down to the river, passing famous academic and husband of Iris Murdoch, John Bayley emerging from a flat very near ours.

Then we watched 'Nostalgia' by Tarkovsky.

Music - listened to 'Urban Zulu' by Busi Mahlongo and Bembya Jazz, both copied to me by a friend of mine who reviews African music for Songlines and recently returned from a trip to Mozambique with 100s of new CDs. That was followed by a few choice Studio Ones... 'Granny Scratch Scratch' by Dub Specialist being the tune of the evening, perhaps...

As usual my girlfriend and I largely ignored Christmas as we are from Serbia, which is Orthodox country and Serbians usually do not celebrate Christmas. But luckilly for us, we got a Serbian Christmas that goes somewhere in the middle of January (Im obviously not expert for such matters).

Hi Jen, Merry Christmas to you too!
Next time I'll send Doug some cds, there will be one for you in the parcel!
A compilation of the Fellow Traveller's songs combing country, folk, reggae and dub. I'll be curious who will like it better, Doug or you!
Cheers,
Ekki